Page Four

THE PEOPL®HS ADVOCATHEH

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
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Vancouver, B.C. - Friday, July 28, 1939

Who Runs Trades
Congress: Green or
“@amadian Labor?

(Oye again, local unions and trades coun-
ceils from Victoria to Halifax are getting
ready for the big event of the year, the 55th
convention of the Trades and Labor Congress
of Canada at Iondon.

Last year, in his opening address Presi-
dent Draper passionately called upon the
trade unionists of our country to unite and
play their rightful role in bringing about eco-
nomic recovery and the strengthening of de-
mocracy. He reiterated the purpose of the
organized labor movement “to gain strength
and power by effective labor organization
and the use of the weapons of democracy.”

Calling for the utmost forthright, free and
frank discussions on the manifold problems
before the convention, he emphasized the
need for solidarity and democracy within
the labor movement, declaring:

“Without some measure of healthy disci-
pline and the submission of the individual to
the collective will there can be no democracy
but only anarchy and egoism.”

The convention laid down a program of co-
operation and struggle for economic recovery
and democracy and called upon its affiliates
and their memberships to do everything pos-
sible to strengthen the unity of the trade
union movement.

It was not surprising that an avalanche of
resolutions were before the 54th conven-
tion of the Trades Congress on the question
ef trade unity.

The unity resolution adopted definitely
stated that “a united international trade un-
ion movement is essential for the workers of
this Dominion,” recounted the unity decisions
of the 1936 Montreal, and 1937 Ottawa Trades
Congress conventions; declared that the door
was still open for unity between the AFL and
CIO unions; demanded that the door be kept
open and instructed the incoming executive
to exert every effort to maintain and strength-
en unity.

Wo mistake about it: the leaders and rank
and file of the organized trade union move-
ment decided on unity at Niagara Falls last
September. They knew, as every working
man and woman understands that trade union
unity is the backbone of our democracy.

William Green Does

Not Heed Majority

Bo in January last, William Green and
the executive of the AFL, forced through
the suspension of the CIO unions from the
Trades and Labor Congress. This arbitrary
act of his, entirely out of harmony with the
sentiments and needs of the Canadian work-
ers, a plain violation of commonsense and
democratic principles, will come up for dis-
cussion and decision at the 55th London con-
vention. _

He has split the international trade union
movement south of the line and holds fast to
his reactionary, anti-New Deal and pro-Re-
publican party policies. He refuses to lift a
finger to help organize the unorganized mil-
lions of the decisive mass production indus-
tries and fight against the efforts of the ClO
to do this job.

Now he wants to export this suicidal policy
to ‘Canada, to fan an internecine war within
the labor movement of our country, and to
make the Trades Congress a rubber-stamp
for his dangerous policies.

Outside of a handful of reactionaries, Wil-
liam Green has no support for such a policy in
Canada. Like King Canute he wants to keep
the tide back. Canadian labor in convention
assembled will have to give him an appropri-
ate answer.

Our Trades Congress

Must Go Forward

SEEMS that the Canadian trade union
movement has no alternative but to send
in ten times as many resolutions calling for
trade union unity to the London Trades Con-
gress convention, from every local union, from
every Trades and Labor Council.

Tt also seems as though every local union
and Trades and Labor Council is duty bound
to see that its full quota of delegates are
elected fo, and proceed to the London Trades
Congress convention. We have confidence
enough in the men and women of our trade
union movement to predict that the elected
delegates will be pro-unity fighters who will
go to London, determined to lift the suspen-
Sion edict enforced by William Green and to
keep the course of the Trades Congress point-
ed in a progressive, democratic direction.

Our country approaches serious times. A
federal election looms. Big jobs remain un-
done. Our trade union movement must be
united, must be built up, must organize the
hundreds of thousands in the great industries,
must play its rightful part in the strugele
for social reforms, peace and democracy.

On with the preparations for the 55th con-
vention of the Trades and Labor Congress of

Canada, a gathering of unity, progress and
working-class solidarity!

Tim Buck Points Way toe Struggle for

JOBS AND SECURITY

HE heart of the fight for

national economic recov-
ery is the growing demand for
a comprehensive public works
program to provide sorely-
needed houses, public im-
provements, roads and the
like, and to give jobs to thou-
sands of Canadians.

This country has stagnated
Since 1929 as far as building is
concerned. Few new buildings
have been constructed and those
which were built in the rising
period of Canadian capitalism
(many of them jerry-built) are
falling into disrepair and are
frequently uninhabitable.

The construction industry is
one of the best indexes of how
the business of the country is
faring.

Compared with the peak year
of 1939 when the value of build-
ing permits for the first six
months reached the index point
of 158.2 (1926 equalling 100) con-
struction dropped steadily until
in 1933 the index was 13.1. True,
slight improvements were made
later, but they arose out of the
“normal,” crisis-level require-
ments of the country, and not
from any appreciable effort on
the part of governments to fin-
ance public works and low-cost
housing schemes.

Thus, in the first six months of
1939, the value of building per-
mits was less than in the first
six months of 1937 and only
slightly above last year’s level.
Building so far this year, all the
Globe and Mail‘s squawks about
‘Sribery” to the contrary, is still
around the level of the last three
years, and about one-third what
it was in 1926 (341 as compared
with 100).

e

Big Feature
In Elections

HE countrywide movement for

jobs and against the sit-down
strike of the big capitalists prom-
ises to become the most striking
feature of the federal election
campaign, despite Premier Hep-
burn’s efforts to aid the Monopo-
ists in their sit-down strike. Al-
ready it is gathering steam in
Ontario, where on August 25 a
provincial conference is being
called by the workers [to pian
the fight on a wider and deeper
foundation.

Toronto Trades and Labor
Council, representing 45,000 or-
ganized workers, at its last meet
ing sharply condemned the Hep-
burn sabotage of Ottawa offers
to assist the municipalities.

While Ottawa has stalled mis-
erably on this central issue of
Canadian life and although it can
justifiably be felt that its sudden
interest in public works is a pre—
election move, the fact remains
that labor and the people now
have a splendid opportunity to
put reaction on the spot by de
manding action and jobs to end
the scandalous relief system !

For example, the fact that Van-
couver has succeeded in getting
assistance to put through the
plan to make of the False Creek
disease-breeding ground 4 decent
civic enterprise; that the long-
anticipated Post Office addition
is to be started in Toronto; that
dozens of other municipalities

Maicolm Bruce Writes

are being assisted with dozens
of similar projects, is definitely a
victory for the campaign, headed
by the trade unions and the un-
employed, for jobs and national
recovery.

To gainsay this, and to put
down even the very modest
achievements of the past few
weeks to Liberal election stra-
tegy, is very short-sighted indeed.

People Should
Press Advantage

ABOR and the people have won
small advantages. The thing
te do now is to press forward
with a mighty popular movement
to force capital off its money-
bags, to stimulate and pump-
prime the construction industry,
to loan money to municipalities
at long-term low-interest rates, to
break througn private capital’s
opposition to such great schemes
as the St. Lawrence waterway,
to fight most bitterly for action
on the thousands of local im-
provements which every  tax-
payer and city council knows
about, and to thereby take the
first important step along the
road to national recovery.
National recovery is the cen-
tral issue of the election cam-
paign today !
The fight around this central

issue incorporates the needs of
labor, farmers and the people
generally on all fronts: it in-

cludes the fight for wages and
against the rotten relief racket;
it means to increase urban pur-
chasing power and thus to sti-
mulate the demand for industrial
consumers goods; it means to as-
Sist the farmers to sell their
products at a decent price; it
means to build up the trades
unions and above all, it means
to put more heart and soul into
the epreat political democratic
movements which are arising on
all sides.

The time for planning and de-
bate on what a construction
boom should do, and how it
should be paid for, is gone. These
doubts and speculations are the
weapons of the reactionary news-
papers and politicians to pour
cold water on the enthusiasm of
the people.

Why Proj ects
Are Needed

HAT are the facts?

Firstly, those projects which
gre needed to build up Canada
and to stop it becoming com-

pletely a second-rate, slummy
and shabby country, are well-
known. From dreams in the

minds of unemployed leaders and
building trades union business
agents, they have become open
admissions in parliament, in the
press, on the street everywhere.
Who does not know of the St.
Lawrence waterway plan and
President Roosevelt’s good-neigh-
borly offers to help finance it?
Who has not heard sufficient
about the housing scandal to
know that unless low-cost hous-
ing is undertaken in earnest then
we are due for slums which will
put Glasgow in the pale? (Re-
member, even under present dif-
ficult conditions and without or-
ganized municipal and provincial
aid, in June 800 permits for

dwellings were taken out in 50
Canadian towns and cities. What
could not be done if this were
a national effort, generously as-
sisted by government funds and
private capital?)

Everyone knows that as yet it
is impossible to travel by car
through our own country from
coast to coast because stretches
of the highway in Western On-
tario and the Big Bend sector in

British Columbia are not finished

(perhaps because of the fine hand
of Sir Edward Beatty?).

These are the big things which
need to be built. The stimula-
tion of purchasing power result-
ing from more jobs for skilled
and unskilled workers alike, will
in turn stimulate private indus-
try and set factories working
turning out consumers goods—
not to speak of the help such a
works and jobs program will give
to the farmers. jz

Secondly, the money to finance
such projects, besides coming
from private capitalists and in-
vestors putting their capital to
work, can be found from govern-
ment funds, can be organized
through the Bank of Canada, can
be poured into productive chan-
nels at extremely low interest
rates or as grants to be supple
mented by municipal or provin-
cial funds. Indeed, it can be
raised by special emergency tax-
ation measures on idle capital
which is now being hoarded by
the big shots in order to blud-
feon the country into accepting
its reactionary political program.

@
Fight Against
Capital’s ‘Sitdown’

ANADA is one of the most
backward countries in the
world when it comes to direct
government effort to stimulate
national recovery. True, the
government has no great arma-
ments program to provide stimu-
lation as is the case in Great
Britain. But apart from that,
this country is away behind Bri-
tain, the USA, New Zealand and
other capitalist democracies.

The reason is that, granted
the unanimous desire of the com-
mon people for jobs and wages
and just farm prices, the organi-
zation and force of the people’s
movement has not yet been
strong enough to compei action
at once.

The opportunity is here. ‘The
coming federal election gives
labor and the people a meagnifi-
cent opportunity to press their
demands — and concurrently to
defeat the reactionaries by put-
ting them on the spot with the
jobs and recovery campaign.

The rising movement in On-
tario and other provinces must
press ahead. Conferences such
as the planned meeting in Tor-
onto should be duplicated every—

where. Trades unions, the un-
employed, the farmers’ Eroups,
tagpayers’ associations, service

clubs, progressive political groups
—all are vitally concerned with
this great fight against big busi-
ness and its sit-down strike, and
all can be rallied into a crusade
the like of which Canada has not
yet seen.

Full speed ahead to get jobs
and wages ! Build up Canada and
defeat the reactionary politicians
ana their banker-bosses!

A REDRLY FO COLDWELELL

the CCE WNa-

tional Executive, M. J. Cold-
well, MP, has issued a2 state-
ment on his party's attitude to
the New Democracy Movement,
rejecting cooperation with it on
the ground that the Wew Demo-
eracy is, according to him, a new
party.

This is not the only inaccur-
acy in Coldwell’s statement. The
Wew Democracy, Hon. W- D.
Herridge has stated, is not and
has no intention of becoming 2
political party, although there
are followers of Herridge, like
Adams of Vancouver, who act
contrary to the declared aims and
purposes of the movement.

But that does not make it a
new party any more than devia-
tions from the official CCF line
by one of its clubs change that
partys character.

Coldwell is also wrong when
he likens the New. Democracy to
the late Reconstruction Party
launched by H. H. Stevens and
the Progressive Movement of
1921 which sent three score Te-
presentatives to the federal par-
liament. The progressive move—
ment based itself on the far-
mers’ movement almost exclu-
sively. There was no alliance
with the labor movement to give
it the strength it lacked, to impel
it forward. The Reconstruction
Party, while an ineffectual ex-
pression of dissatisfaction with
the old-line parties, was defin-
itely a new party and made no
pretence of cooperating with ex-
isting progressive groups.

Wor is Coldwell correct in stat-
ing “the CCE is always willing
to co-operate with any genuine
democratic movement for the
common good.” Tf that is so, why
does the CCE leadership follow
the disastrous policy of the Ger-
man Social Democratic leaders of
refusing co-operation with the
Communist Party, the greatest

PEAKING for

defender of democracy extant?
The “co-operation” Coldwell talks
about is the co-operation prac-
ticed by the cat and the canary.

And yet the actions of some
provincial and constituency Tre-
presentatives of the New Demo-
cracy could give many in the
CCF the impression that Her-
ridge was out to form a new
party, and these deviations are
seized upon by right wing CCF
leaders to prevent, unity of pro-
gressives in the elections.

If, as Coldwell says, the New
Democracy will run candidates
jn constituencies now held by
the CCF, or in constituencies
where the CCF has reached the
status of a third party and its
candidates haye a chance of
being elected, the Communist
Party will not hesitate to de-
nounce such as a splitting action.

Adams, New Democracy Tre-
presentative in BC, is reported
in the press to have said: “If
candidates already running for
other parties refuse to adopt
our policy, then we shall enter
our own men.” If Adams and
his associates make any such de-
mand on CCF or any other pro-
gressive candidates and, failing
to have them complied with, run
candidates against them, the
Gommunist Party will unhesitat-
ingly denounce and oppose such
splitting of the progressive vote.

Tt is sheer effrontery and con-
trary to the declared aims and
purposes of the New Democracy
to demand pledges of progressive
candidates who are in the field.
Whether candidates should be
given progressive support de-
pends upon the political affilia-
tions of those candidates, their
records, their personal integrity
and their attitude.

@
* MAKING use of the er-
rors of representatives of
the Wew Democracy to justify

non-cooperation with other pro-
gressive groups, Goldwell could
not refrain from misrepresenting
the Communist Party by saying
that the Communist Party has
“enlisted” behind Herridge. The
Communist Party has not enlist
ed behind Herridge, nor is it a
part of the New Democracy
movement. But the Communist
Party welcomes the new move-—
ment because it is a manifesta-
tion of growing dissatisfaction
with, and evidence of, diminish-
ing support for, the old-line par-
ties and presents an opportunity
for bringing thousands of addi-
tional voters over to support of
progressive candidates.

The Communist Party will co-
operate with the New Democracy
movement or any other progres-
sive group in assisting deserters
from the old-line parties to find
their way to support of progres-
sive candidates.

The Communist Party will co-
operate with the New Democracy
if it acts as a unifying force in
the constituencies to rally all
possible support behind one pro-
gressive candidate in each con-
stituency—and in most of the
constituencies in BC. They will
be candidates of the CCR. it fol-
lows, therefore, that if the New
Democracy is to play its proper
role, it will support the candi-
dates of the CCE in those con-
stituencies when the CCF has the
best chance of defeating the can-
didates of the old-line parties.

Meanwhile, while striving for
the election of progressive can-
didates, the Communist Party
will preserve its identity. and in-
dependence and put forward its
own program, for, in contrast
to some leaders of the CCE, it
has no fear that in cooperating
with other progressive groups
against reaction it will become
“absorbed” by, or be “enlisted
behind” some other organisation.

SHORT
JABS

by OF Bill

School teachers in Scotland will soon be able £
take an intelligent interest in their work Owing
the hard work and unflagging efforts of Com=

munist councillors and sche
Progress In board members, youngsters a
Scotland. tending secondary schools ir

: Dumbartonshire will study 2 ne
kind of history. Too long have 1066, Bruce and thi
Spider, Bannockburn and the roster of the kin
of Scotland and Britain constituted the content o
what passed for history in the best educated par
of the British Empire. :
The schedules of work so far as they affect his 1
tory and citizenship are now to have as an integral) :
part of their curriculum the study of the followin
notable contributions to working class history: The
History of the Working Classes in Scotland, by To
Johnson, MP; The History of the British Working =
Class Movement, by G D. H Cole; The Town Lab
orer, 1700-1832, by D. lz. Hammond; and Soviet Com:
munism: A New Civilization, by Sidney and Beat”
rice Webb. q
A little more progress on the part of the Scottish
educational authorities and we may find them in |
troducing Capital, in which Marx, the greatest his. |
torian of all, explains and analyzes the conditions /
dealt with in the foregoing books. =

When I wrote last week abou! |

wre Get Major Hoople joining the Kwan
Support. tung Army, the impressions and |

: conclusions stated in the columy
were entirely my Own. Since writing that item 7 #
have come upon some evidence which sustains [
everything I said then. It is so good that I decided §
then and there to include it in this column in case 7
my own story was not conyincing enough. i
The Left Book Club published a book, Secre
Agent of Japan. The author, Amleto Vespa by name
is an Italian and an ardent admirer of Mussolini

previously acted in the same kind of work for man
years for Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian war-lord

Fie claims to have been personally associated witt ‘4

the Japanese war-mongers, Generals Terauchi, Su }
zuki and Doihara and Col. Tanaka, the author o @
the now famous Tanaka Memorial

The book is a catalogue of torture, of degeneracy
Gf the word can be used in connection with the
Japanese militarists), of inhumanity; of rape ani
pillage; of kidnapping and murder. A few instance:
of bravery and nobility displayed by the victims
Russian, Chinese and Korean alike, save this boo!
from being a damnable indictment of the humar
race. It is only possible to believe the charge
made by Vespa against the Japanese overlords i ©
we remember that it is only 80 years since the |
were living in a state of barbarism which civilize :
tion has not yet had time to transform.

Hw. J. Timperley of the Manchester Guardian an

Edgar Snow of the London Daily Hlerald and a: |

American journalist, all on the ground in the Orien
who read the book before its publication agree the
it is perfectly believable. The following extwact &
plains the boasts of the last few months about th
Japanese “air victories” over the Soviet forces:
“During the four and a hé.
Banzai!
the Japanese army in Mar
churia, I never read a single accurate report of it
almost daily encounters with the bandits or irrer
ulars. The Japanese never admitted they had hee)
defeated or had suffered heavy losses. When the
had real victories, they were equally grossly &
apgerated. Were one to assemble together the 6)
ficial communiques handed to the press by th
Japanese military command, they would form
most laughable collection of incredible jokes.

For instance, the official report on the battle «

Sunbei, given to the press by General Tamon, com j
mander of the military division of Harbin, is typics
of the Japanese mentality and imbecility.

“The 18th of May, 1932, a detachment of 1200 §
Japanese soldiers met in the vicinity of Sunbei
(a village a few kilometers from Harbin), a strene
band of bandits numbering more than 8000 men,
all well armed and with Soviet rifles and ms
chine guns. After a terrible battle which lasted
more than six hours and during which there were
repeated bayonet charges, thanks to the insuper
able bravery of our soldiers, the bandits ran awa
leaving 1214 dead and 763 wounded. Our losses
were 14 dead and 31 wounded.

“The Commander of the Division,
General Tamon’

“In terms of the actual facts‘

And The that incident known to me, it &
Truth. above fairy tale must be revise

to read as follows: ‘In the batt

of Sunbei, a detachment of Japanese, more the
3500 strong, were attacked by a heavy force of il
regulars. After a desperate resistance, the Japane>
were forced to retreat towards the Sungari rive
on the bank of which, in a fishermen’s village, the
barricaded themselves and waited for the night
fall. Under cover of darkness they erossed the rive
in fishing boats under a terrific fire from the ify
repulars. Of the 3500 and more, only 1676, of who =
“many were wounded, succeeded in reaching +s
opposite bank. Six days later, when strong Japane
reinforcements occupied Sunbei, 907 Japane @
corpses were found between the village and tl
Sungari river, every one of them naked, their
forms having been removed by the “bandits.” D
ing the next fifteen days 581 more corpses Wl”
found in the river, among whom was the corpse *,
the colonel in command of the detachment. :

“On the 27th of May, the commander of t!
Japanese Military Mission in Harbin, received 2 it
ter from the commander of the irregulars, in whi
he was informed that 382 Japanese soldiers and
officers were held prisoners and a proposal of €&
change of prisoners was made’.” ;

This is a natural result of the myth of
Japanese, descendents of the sun goddess,
verasu-O-Mi-Kama, that one Japanese samurai kill
2000 of his enemies single-handed.

Another Communist ee pe ie
Plot Downed. Red Star of
Soviet Pavill

soared high above everything else in the show. .
terrible situation! But the world as well as t
world’s Fair has been saved. The Gatholic Regs
reports that owing to the protests of Catholic 2%
other groups this situation has been rectified |
Americans may now sleep serenely in their aoe
A 31-foot flagpole has been mounted on top
parachute jump and now Old Glory floats” ju
little higher than the Red Star. American ei

tion is once again saved for the Dies Con
God’s gift to American reaction.

years that I had to work wit

ie

\f